Can individualists be compassionate?

Shirley Letwin

The Tories may lose the next election, the pundits say, because Mrs Thatcher is defending individualism and everyone knows that individualists have no compassion. The moral of the story is that corn passionate Conservatives should recognise the virtues of socialism, perhaps not under that name but certainly under the banner of moderation, and that anyone who spurns it should be anathematised by true blue. Tories for being 'extremist'.

What keeps individualists from being compassionate? That not very long ago sober Englishmen would have considered it mad to ask the question makes it all the more urgent to do so now. There is a terrible confusion about individualism which has done much to secure the ascendancy of socialism. If it is to be fought, we must recognise that there are two very different breeds of individualism.

One is the subject of a large literature and has always been recognised as Individualism. But the other, which flourished chiefly in Britain, has been identified only as 'the peculiarity of the British'. Nothing less than wholly different conceptions of individually divide the two. For the former — 'classical' — individualism, the differences that make some people bigger, stronger, cleverer than others constitute individuality. And this is part of a picture of the human world as full of competition; everyone is running a race with someone and identifies himself as being ahead or behind, more or less successful than the next fellow. Individuals may gang up to fight in groups or classes, and then the struggle takes on the form of a 'class war'. But either way life is a constant battle to satisfy one's interests, with victory going to the most efficient and ruthless.

Civilisation is supposed to consist of strategies devised by reason to obtain more goods with less effort, though the first object of such strategies has been to provide some respite from the war of each against all. Thanks to the moments of peace brought by civilisation, men have developed not only better ways of satisfying wants but also more refined wants. But the arts of civilisation are not only incidental to its fundamental character, which is that of a repressive force, an armoury of weapons for subduing the aggressive instincts of men and harnessing their energy to peaceful pursuits. Consequently classical individualists accept the disciplines of civilisation as they would a nasty medicine. And this shapes their attitude to government.

The purpose of government, they think, is to help the best warriors to win the battle. They assume that the most powerful will get control of the government and use it to serve their own interests. But as everyone distrusts everyone, even among the powerful, such individualists want the government to do as little as possible. They may advocate that the government relieve the suffering of their weaker brothers so as to ensure social peace, self-interest. And when they defend freedom and private enterprise, what they mean is that the powerful should be free to grab and enjoy their spoils.

The upshot is a world hardly full of grace and joy, or illuminated by a humane spirit.

Interests and struggles, getting and spending are at the centre. Order is just a means to acquiring more possessions and consists in suppressing self-interest to avoid barbarism. Science is the apotheosis of civil isation because it enables men to man ipulate the world more efficiently. The only differene between men and amoebae is that men solve their problems more efficiently. And the only question for politicians is what rhetoric will enable 'us' to get power over 'them' and how much force must be used to stay in power.

All these ideas are repulsive to the other kind of individualist. As he sees things, being ahead or behind nas nothing to do with individuality; the differences that interest him are of another sort. They spring from the capacity of human beings to make infinitely diverse responses to anything. They are displayed in the fact that a mountain may be seen as a terrifying obstacle, a glimpse of eternity, a challenge to climb, a store of minerals; that a man may find joy in weeding his garden or in flying a plane, choose solitude or dote on the noise of the city, work at the craft of his forefathers or wander away to distant lands, feel obliged to endure pain silently or to rail at the heavens, have a genius for laughter or for mathematics. But to recognise, let alone enjoy, such diversity on must forswear the comforts of simplistic dogmas about human 'nature' which reduce men and women to packages of assorted ticks. In short, one must see a man as a rational being, who knows himself, who makes himself what he will, to whom things appear as he learns to see them. Even though there is nothing gloomy or nasty about this view of man, it is not a dream — it is the only way of accounting for human history, and for both the good and the evil in it.

Such individuality is perfected by acquiring self-sufficiency not aggressiveness. It may be wholly indifferent to being above or below someone else. And it not only allows compassion, it is the necessary foundation for compassion. For genuine compassion flows from venerating the individuality of others and is displayed in deep aversion to uniformity and impersonality. It is nothing like the condescending pity for those who have the misfortune to be unlike oneself that now parades as compassion and treats people as bundles of computerised 'needs'.

Although such individualism might be called 'conservative', because it defends tradition, authority, and decorum, it is not the property of the Tories. Men of all parties in Britain once took it so much for granted that they thought of it simply as common sense. And its prevalence made the British an object of wonder to foreigners who considered the security of both freedom and order in Britain a miracle.

Though now it seems a miracle in Britain too, it was the wholly natural achievement of a way of thinking for which the disciplines of civilisation are the materials out of which each man fashions his individuality. And one of these disciplines, which is deemed fundamental to civilised life, is provided bY government.

The crucial question about government for the conservative individualist is not whether it should do more or less, but what kind of thing. He does not think of government as an organisation for repressing individuality or self-interest; nor does he see government as an arbitrator of conflict' ing claims or as a dispenser of benefits. A government is for him a council of the whole community, which has been given the authority to make and enforce rules to which everyone is obliged to subscribe. The purpose of these

rules is to enable all the members of the community to live and work together peace fully, while leaving each free to decide how and when he wishes to spend his energy, time, and money. Just as it would be unthinkable for the umpire at a football match to join in the playing, so it is out of character for this sort of government to take control of enterprises, whether industrial or educational.

This conception of government is imperative for anyone who holds three beliefs: that the humanity of men is identical with their capacity to develop unique personalities; that to fail to respect their personality is to debase them; that although the state is essential to communal life, it is not identical With it but only one of many forms of association which can do what the state does not. The fact that when the state runs factories they are likely to be run badly is only an incidental reason for opposing nationalised industry. The chief objection is

that when a government takes over such activities it treats the members of the community as instruments of production rather than as free men who decide their own Purposes for themselves. And are no less debased by a government that acts as a commissar of culture. The insistence on a government that rules its subjects and does not run their lives is the precise meaning of that love of liberty on which the British have Prided themselves.

Because both sorts of individualist talk about freedom, they may seem indistinguishable to an undiscriminating eye. The confusion has been encouraged, and not always unwittingly, by Utilitarians, Marxists, Fabians, Liberals, and Conservatives. Nevertheless the difference is Profound. The classical individualist regards all rules as impediments to having his own way. and tolerates laws as a necessary evil which save him from the nuisance Of conflict. To the conservative individualist, the rules made by the government, as well as other kinds, are no more an impediment to his activities than the rules made by the Marylebone Cricket Club are to the Players of cricket. Because he thinks of government as a ruler and not as an ins trument of repression, he feels no hostility to it. What worries him is that it should Preserve the character of an umpire and not take to deciding the order of batting and fielding.

There is no tension whatever between this view of government and compassion for the poor. The conservative individualist is concerned with maintaining decent standards for all, not because he hates to see some have more than others or because he longs for uniformity, as bogus compassion does, but because in some circumstances People may find it exceedingly difficult to cultivate and express their individuality. In Other words, his individualism. In other words, his individualism obliges him to be compassionate. It leads him also to rec ognise that what constitutes standards of a decent life, once they go beyond mere survival, is disputable and that they may be achieved in various ways. And his para mount consideration in choosing among these ways is that the help given should not degrade them by turning them into clients of the state.

To make all this plain in public discussions is difficult even for those who have long reflected on what being governed as free men means. Conservative individualism can only be caricatured by slogans and formulas. It cannot be encapsulated in a catechism or blueprint. When such individualists try to defend their views, they easily feel at a loss and are tempted to fall into the catchy language of their namesakes, thus making plausible the charge that they are devoid of compassion.

But the truth is that socialism has no place for compassion. It is because as Labour ministers are always telling us, a socialist government runs the country, instead of ruling. When they acquire state monopolies, redistribute income, order children into com prehensives and workers into boardrooms, they are running people by spending their money and time for them and managing their lives. Letting people vote in elections does not liberate them from being man aged. It merely allows them to choose one set of managers instead of another. That a patient dying of cancer can select his doctor does not mean that he is healthy. Even if everyone voted on everything, it would not help. When a player participates in deciding the tactics of his team, he is not being given leave to pursue his own projects. Nor is there anything intrinsically more com passionate about enterprises managed by a state bureaucracy than about private business. On the contrary, state direction of industry, education, medicine is the natural instrument of tyrants and that is why the most oppressive regimes known to us, where it is normal to exterminate human beings as well as flies, have been socialist: • Soviet Russia, Nazi Germany, Communist It has become fashionable lately to discover that the architects of moderate British socialism, Beatrice and Sidney Webb had contempt for the 'average sensual man'. They were not aberrations. And they showed that the only sound reason for being socialist is an abhorrence of individuality. They made it plain that the only compassion possible in a socialist state is that of a keeper of battery hens – the creatures may be kept in good condition but not because their keepers adore their individuality. The question before Britain now is whether to choose the compassion of battery hen keepers. Real compassion, which does not condescend, or manipulate people, whose essence is love of the variety of personality; socialism can only destroy. No doubt some socialists are truly compassionate. But the notion that there is a necessary or indeed any connection whatever between socialism and compassion is a fatal illusion.

If there have been and are socialists like R.H. Tawney, who did not share the Webbs's repugnance to individuality, it should be remembered that he would have found Mrs Williams's passion for comprehensives as distateful as Mrs Webb's passion for Soviet Russia. He believed that universities should uphold 'exact and arduous standards of knowledge' and that 'nothing can justify my using my neighbour as a tool. . .to realise my ends, however noble those ends may be.' But it should be remembered too that Tawney's Acquisitive Society has fostered that deadly confusion between classical and conservative individualism that has led decent people to abolish what they most value.

Our crystal ball gazers tell us that the electorate deplores Mrs Thatcher's lack of appreciation for 'socialist idealism'. It is more likely that the voters fear that the Conservative Party is too infected with 'socialist idealism' to save the great civilisation created by a people who knew how to cherish their individuality.